111–120 of 229 posts
My neighbor befriended a crow, and was recently asking around about how to un befriend the crow, who has become a nuisance stealing every object it could carry from their back porch.
I can vouch for this approach. I lived in the territory of a couple of ravens (close relatives of crows; just as smart and twice as large) and it took me maybe 18 months to build a close relationship. I started out just talking to them and throwing whole peanuts (roasted, unsalted) on the ground while I was doing it. They looked at me warily and did not come close. Later on, the peanuts would disappear, but I was nev…
I can vouch for this approach. I lived in the territory of a couple of ravens (close relatives of crows; just as smart and twice as large) and it took me maybe 18 months to build a close relationship. I started out just talking to them and throwing whole peanuts (roasted, unsalted) on the ground while I was doing it. They looked at me warily and did not come close. Later on, the peanuts would disappear, but I was nev…
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I don't think his comment meant "edibility rises linearly with age." I think it meant "it reaches a peak" and implicitly "and then declines from there."
There's only one way to get to the bottom of this... we're going to have to have eat a lot of crows. No arguments now, this is science damn it!
Although you can open up a new branch of Science.
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Yes, of course. Your tone has to convey not only, "I am not a predator" but also "I do not perceive you as a threat, and so the purpose of my vocalization is not to scare you away because I perceive you as a threat, and if you come close I am likely to try to harm you in order to defend myself." In nature, the Bayesian prior on an entity that is not a member of your species, or even your tribe, seeking an interaction…
Hummingbirds I've noticed are very curious about other creatures. To a fault even, mantises will sometimes exploit this to catch hummingbirds (they are much more powerful than you might expect). I don't know if this is universal across hummingbird species/groups, but I'm able get very close to them by just patiently standing still by the feeder for 10 or 15 minutes, and they'll start investigating me.
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We wouldn't have non-wild animals if noone had started feeding them.
IIRC dogs may have domesticated themselves by coming to visit us to eat our poop, not our hand feeding.
Why is that more likely than just "eating the bones, skin, feet, and other animal parts the humans didn't eat" ?
Either is more likely than "hand feeding" since that takes a pretty tamed animal.
I've been trying to befriend crows, but it's a slow process. When I go for a walk I usually take a rich tea biscuit with me. I put it on a post where a crow sometimes rests. At first, it was more-or-less luck as to who and when a crow found it. But they began to catch on, and I'm pretty sure at least one was waiting for me. They were either on the post, or nearby. They fly off when you approach, of course. But they g…
It's an order of magnitude easier to befriend crows in the city, as opposed to the country. The more rural you are located, the more time it will take you to befriend a crow. The first one is the hardest. They'll start bringing friends, eventually. They like they rituals and consistency -- you've already discovered this. They also lose interest if you don't keep it up regularly. Don't look straight at crows, they don…
My mother had been feeding birds for a while. The local crows quickly realized that she's a soft-touch, so they sit on the garden fence outside her window. If she sees them, she throws something to them. It started with one female bird who eventually brought her young. She would take treats and feed them to her annoyingly loud offspring before eventually having something for herself. My mother got a kick out of this. The matriarch would eventually come to her window and tap on it. But if my mother looked at her directly she'd fly back to the fence. But she could open the window "nonchalantly" and throw treats without scaring her off as long as she didn't look straight at her. Other crows have noticed this. She now has a dozen or so hanging around. The original bird sits looking into her bedroom window in the morning waiting for her to get out of bed, and then flies around to the kitchen to tap on it. You see, there's competition now.
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I feel bad to have to say that he may have been snacked on by a predator. If he could fly, he would probably have flown while you were there.
Excuse my ignorance, but what type of animal would eat a crow?
Why though? There are dozens of crows in my neighborhood. If I befriend crows will they come to expect food from me? What about the pigeons and seagulls? Will they come to resent me? My policy on neighborhood birds has always been neutrality.
My wife set up a bird feeder on our floor to ceiling glass windows in our living room -- it is a plexiglass module with suction cups. It was nice seeing the birds, but it was really entertaining watching the squirrels trying to get the food. At first she tried to thwart the them, but in no time started recognizing the squirrels as individuals and noticing their personality and behavioral differences, and gave them na…
This reminds me of my University days, where peeps would go and eat under large banyan trees. There would be a number of squirrels who'd hang out and be fed by students, and as a result these squirrels would get gutsy. A friend had a squirrel leap onto their table and steal fries while they weren't looking!